Zeitschriftenartikel zum Thema „Book of the Duchesse (Chaucer, Geoffrey)“

Geoffrey Chaucer, and the scene in the Book of the Duchess when he falls asleep reading a book, is often taken as a case study in the history of reading and the transition to silent, private reading. Moving from Chaucer’s own writing, this talk ventures into the economics of paper, manuscript layout and production, and pastoral education to consider the plausibility of Chaucer’s reading in bed.

The 124-volume edition of The Poets of Great Britain, containing The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, came into being when, in 1807, a group of thirty-three London booksellers began publication of a work that claims, from its title page, to be a reprint of John Bell’s 1782 series The Poets of Great Britain. The reality, however, is somewhat different. In fact the works of Chaucer have been markedly revised and re-edited, a feature that until now had not been noted by scholars.The following article is a textual analysis of some of the most striking features to have emerged from an analysis of the 1807 edition of The Book of the Duchess, as compared with its predecessors. The Book of the Duchess has been chosen as a sample text for this consideration, primarily because it is of sufficient scope to offer, on the one hand, a substantial enough sample from which to draw conclusions, and, on the other hand, limited enough to be manageable. In addition to these particular reasons, The Book of the Duchess is a poem the authority of which has never been questioned, and thus it has appeared in every printed edition of the works of Chaucer, providing this study with extensive points for comparison.

This article explores the acts of mourning for John of Gaunt’s first wife, Blanche. It places Geoffrey Chaucer’s mourning poem, The Book of the Duchess, in a broader historical context with the material object of the tomb in Saint Paul’s and the performative rites that attended not only her funeral but also the subsequent anniversaries of her death. Elizabeth Edwards argues that all three formed part of the “work of mourning,” a Freudian term that encapsulates not only the medieval concept of consolatio but also the political, social, and economic labour performed by public mourning such as John of Gaunt’s for Blanche.

The article is devoted to the consideration of questions about which sonnet was the first example of a national genre form in English poetry, and about the relationship between its text and previous traditions and specific monuments. The research material was a fragment of the chivalric romance “Amoryus and Cleopes” by John Metham. Topicality of the study is due to the lack of knowledge of this text. The form of graphic organisation of the selected fragment is analysed against the background of comparisons with various ways of setting up classical Italian sonnets, then the meaningful motifs and the integral plot of the fragment are correlated with the content of Francesco Petrarch’s book “De remediis utriusque fortunae” and in more detail with the plot of Geoffrey Chaucer’s early poem “The Book of the Duchess”. The general A.M. Severinus Boethius’s theme of the Wheel of Fortune is noted, and the movement of the plot in Chaucer and Metham and both figures of their complaining knights, as well as the causes of their suffering, are assessed. In the process of analysis, it is possible to establish that a fragment of the novel, designed by the author on the model of Italian sonnets, yet containing an original rhyme scheme, which will become known as the rhyme of an English sonnet, exhibits a parodic character in relation to the texts of Petrarch and Chaucer.

The article discusses the meaning of the poem The Book of the Duchess by Geoffrey Chaucer, which is considered as a multi-layered structure. Traditionally popular topics in Chaucerian studies related to this work are those that involve discussion of questions about the validity of the publishers’ choice of one of the surviving titles for the poem, about the correlation of the images of the main characters, including the Dreamer, in the plot and narrative, about the motivation for the two-part type of composition (The Proemium and The Dream) and the function of using in the plot of the retelling from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (the story of Ceyx and Alcyone), and finally, about the connection of this retelling with the “Boethian” poems of Guillaume de Machaut. The author of the article consistently touches on the essence of the listed issues, in order to finally present his own concept of the form and meaning of Chaucer’s early poem. In particular, the primacy of the image of the lady lost by the knight is questioned. The author of the article proposes to consider the structure of the work as a voluminous, multi-layered object, under the outer layer of which (the praising of the queen stolen by Fortune, whose prototype was Blanche the Duchess of Lancaster) there is a layer with a focus on the complaining knight (and the implicit function inherent in the elements of this layer of praising this knight for his courtliness, education, and qualities of a lover), which, in turn, hides the third layer, the semantic core of which is in the theme of Chaucer’s own competition with Guillaume de Machaut and Ovid in the realm of poetic fantasies.

This article grapples with the question of the corpse through two particular literary texts. Rather than an elucidation of the physiological principle of the human body by means of dissection, the play Mactatio Abel, written in England in the 15th century, stages the difficulty of the relation to the corpse, via an amplification of the biblical narrative of Abel’s murder by Caïn. As for Chaucer’s work, The Book of the Duchess, it rewrites Ovid’s and Machaut’s texts featuring the figure of Morpheus in a way that distinguishes between an imitation of the living and its simulacrum in the sense Wolfgang Iser gives this concept. Chaucer’s Morpheus, instead of promoting veri - similitude, forbids it. Indeed, h e animates a corpse from within instead of simulating an apparition of the deceased. The simulacrum, rather than a mimetic copy of the real, b locks all representational illusion, in order to formulate absence. The readability of the corpse in both works is relational. Both literary texts express the corpse as being always already grounded in a relational and narratorial space.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s final utterance is so un-Chaucerian in sentiment that several ingenious theories have evolved over the years to account for its textual persistence. The Retraction has been read as a real confession by Chaucer the poet in the face of imminent death; as a realistic confession by Chaucer the Pilgrim in response to the Parson’s sermon; and as an ironic parody of both confession and retraction in keeping with the Manciple’s cynical counsel to silence.

The medieval epic poem Troilus and Criseyde by Chaucer describes the history of unhappy love with the Trojan War in the background. The story is constructed in the convention of courtly love, and the author draws abundantly from a range of plot motifs preserved in the ancient literary tradition. The article discusses the way of intertextual use of Ovid’s Heroides 5 in the course of events told in Book One of the poem.

The study presented here examines the problems of composition and architectonics of a work of fiction. The author analyses the correlation of these notions. A close examination of the types of compositional organization of a work of fiction has been carried out. It is noted that the problem of the composition of a work of fiction has a fairly long tradition. At the time, the problem was considered by Aristotle (4th century BC), who focused on the fact that the perfection of a work could be achieved by motivated selection and combination of separate elements into a single whole, which forms complete harmony. A study has been made of the theoretical aspects of the notion of «composition», as well as a demarcation with similar values such as «structure» and «architectonics», and a description of compositional techniques that clarify the functions of composition in a work of fiction. The article discusses the features of the composition and architectonics of «Canterbury Tales», a work by Geoffrey Chaucer, which was written at the end of the 14th century in Middle English, but remained unfinished. Chaucer’s literary skill is manifested in the fact that the stories reflect the individual traits and individual manner of narrating of the characters. The author depicts a wide canvas of English reality of his contemporary era. The book consists of a «Prologue», 22 verse and two prose stories, which are interconnected by interludes. The framing story reports on the development of the action. Borrowing the themes from numerous stories by other authors, Chaucer complicates the plot, saturates it with realistic details. At the same time, he connects the dynamics of action with psychological analysis. It is emphasized that the composition of a work of fiction is structured from the following main elements: plot — a series of events that are depicted in the work of fiction; conflict is a clash of characters and circumstances, views and principles of being, which are the basis of action. The conflict may arise between the individual and society or between characters. And in the mind of the hero, it can be explicit, hidden or imaginary. Plot elements reflect the stages of development of the conflict; prologue — a kind of introduction to the work, which tells about the events of the past and it emotionally sets the reader to perceive the work; exposition — an introduction to the main action, an description of the conditions and circumstances that preceded the beginning of the action (it can be expanded, non-deployed, integral and «torn», located at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the work); familiarization with the characters of the work, the circumstances and chronology against which the action takes place; starting point of the plot — the beginning of the plot movement (the event from which the conflict begins, further events develop); development of action — a system of events that are the result of the starting point of the plot; the conflict escalates, and contradictions appear more clearly and sharply; climax — the moment of the highest tension of the action, the peak of the conflict — after the climax, the action weakens; denouement — the resolution of the main conflict, or an indication of possible ways to resolve it. This is the final moment of the action of the work of fiction. At this stage of the composition, either the resolution of the conflict is demonstrated or the impossibility of its resolution is shown; epilogue — the final part of the work of fiction, which indicates the direction of further development of events and the fate of the characters. A short message about what happened to the acting characters of the work of fiction after the end of the main storyline. The study considers plot options: the plot can be presented in a direct sequence of events with digressions into the past — retrospectives. In addition, the plot may depict «excursions» into the future or deliberately show an altered sequence of events. Non-plot elements are: inserted episodes, author’s digressions. Therefore, it should be noted that the main function of the plot is to expand the scope of the depicted events and, thus, to reflect the position of the author in relation to various phenomena of life. The work of fiction may lack individual elements of the plot, and sometimes there are several storylines. Architectonic techniques used by the author create a special unique author’s style. And it is the author himself who chooses the main compositional elements. Thus, the composition of a work of fiction can be multifaceted, linear, circular, «a thread with beads». Masterful architectonics is not just the unity of the constituent parts of a work, it is the originality of a particular work, its beauty and uniqueness. It has been determined that the most important property of the composition of this work of Chaucer is its logical sequence. It is with the help of the composition that one can determine that in the «Canterbury Tales» the center of events is the journey of the pilgrims to the holy place. Architectonics is consequently the relationship between the parts of the work. For example, the prologue and epilogue are traditionally small, the prologue being located at the beginning and the epilogue at the end of the work. And the larger elements are located between the prologue and the epilogue. Thus, the architectonics of the elements of the work is logically consistent with each other. In the «Canterbury Tales», the event type of composition has a chronological form. There is a time distance between separate events, but there is no violation of the natural chronology.

Renowned as a reference book of Dante and Chaucer, Boethius’s Consolation of Philosopy occupies a peerless room in literary realm. Dante draws on the Boethian elements in his Vita Nuova, the Convivio and the Commedia. Among his other works, Chaucer’s making use of Boethius’s Consolation in Troilus and Criseyde has been well documented by Chaucerians. A work belonging to the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire, Consolation focuses on fate, fortune and free will and was translated into numerous languages even by Chaucer himself, Boece, and by an Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred the Great. Recognised as a philosophical treatise, this exceptional work embraces a patchwork of Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean, and neo-Platonic thoughts. Alongside its philosophical concerns, featuring Lady Philosophy as a guide, teacher and a doctor to Boethius, Consolation suggests the authority of women over men via the power of female discourse. Tracing the footsteps of Lady Philosophy, another female character, Chaucer’s Prudence in the Tale of Melibee consoles and guides her husband Melibee to goodness via her powerful discourse. Mostly treated as a dull text by critics, the Tale of Melibee is put in the category of the least favourite tales of Chaucer. In this paper, yet, I will focus on the tale with positive lens and read it as a text revealing the mastery and authority of women over men reversing the gender roles in a period well-known for its misogyny. Thereby, I assert that Prudence is an undisclosed Wife of Bath who raises the flag of victory in the everlasting power struggle between women and men. Finally, the paper comes to an end with an appeal for attraction in that women should take their share in real world alongside in fiction in accordance with Virginia Woolf’s argument in A Room of One’s Own.

Resumo: A Idade Média, erroneamente conhecida como idade das trevas, é um período de grande florescimento das universidades e de uma vasta produção literária, difundida principalmente pelos monges copistas e que faz hoje parte de nosso imaginário. Dentre as obras mais importantes e conhecidas do período podemos citar Beowulf, A Demanda do Santo Graal, Decameron, e aquela que será o foco de nosso estudo: Os Contos de Cantuária, de Geoffrey Chaucer, escrito em fins do século XIV. Tendo em vista que muitas dessas obras literárias vêm sendo recriadas e recontadas através dos séculos, inclusive no século XXI pela televisão e pelo cinema, pretendemos utilizar em nosso trabalho uma das narrativas do livro, o prólogo do Conto da Mulher de Bath. Nosso objetivo será verificar de que forma a vivência da sexualidade explicitada por esta personagem, medieval, pode se contrapor ou equivaler ao comportamento eà questões atuais, do século XXI, ligadas a independência feminina sobre seu corpo e mostrar como este conto é retratado pelas mídias atuais.Palavras-chave: Inglaterra, Literatura Medieval, Chaucer, Mídia.Abstract: The Middle Ages, wrongly known as the Dark Ages, is the period that encompasses the blooming of universities and a vast literally production; which was spread through the work of the monks. Among the most known and important Literary works of this period we can list Beowulf, A Demanda do Santo Graal, The Decameron and the one which will be the focus of our article: The Canterbury Tales. Considered as the master piece of Geoffrey Chaucer, the book is composed by one prologue and twenty seven tales, sometimes being compared to Boccaccio’s Decameron. In the prologue of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer makes a panorama of the peregrines that join him in the journey. These characters are classical representatives from the medieval society; we have characters like the knight, the monk, the pardoner and the merchant, just to name a few. During the presentation of these characters Chaucer inserts his critical view concerning the socioeconomic position of the characters, showing that many times they have inappropriate behaviors according to their position in society. In addition, knowing that many of these literary works have been recreated and retold through the centuries, including on the TV and the cinemaof the twentieth century, we intend to analyze the prologue of The Wife of Bath’s Tale in our article. Our goal through this analysis is to examine how the explicit sexual life presented by this medieval character can differ or be equal to the behavior and to some twentieth century questionings related to the feminine independence over the control of her own body. We also intend to show how this tale is depicted by our the media.Keywords: Wife of Bath, feminine sexuality, criticism of medieval society, medieval literature nowadays.